Davide Valsecchi stormed to victory in front of his local fans this morning in race two, winning by nine seconds ahead of Roldan Rodriguez and Romain Grosjean in the final, action packed race of the season which saw Bruno Senna take the vice-champion laurels and Campos Grand Prix wrap up their first team’s championship.
With another shower falling just before the start almost all of the drivers opted to start on wets,with Valsecchi making a decent start from pole but Rodriguez making an even better one to leadthe Italian into the first chicane ahead of Jérôme D’Ambrosio, Grosjean and Senna, who spun asthe pair in front of him fought for position: Grosjean moved up to third while D’Ambrosio slid backinto the grasp of the pursuing pack.
Lucas di Grassi was on a charge and was soon all over Senna, with the pair fighting hard fortrack position and second in the championship: when Senna went straight at turn one hiscountryman was through, but with the pair running side by side further around the track di Grassicaught up to a fast starting Conway and hit the Briton from behind, spinning both Conway andSenna around as he cut the second chicane, allowing D’Ambrosio to briefly retake fourth place. DiGrassi was soon given a drive through penalty for his efforts, dropping him out of the points whenhe came in a lap later.
With Maldonado on a charge behind him, Valsecchi up front was eating chunks out ofRodriguez’s time: it was only a matter of time before the Italian re-took the lead, eventually out-dragging his rival along the front straight on lap 8 before running away with the race. All eyeswere then on Senna in P10, who now had Grosjean breathing down his championship neck asthe Frenchman hounded down and passed Rodriguez for second on track.
Fortunately for the Brazilian Grosjean soon ran wide, handing the position back to the Spaniardand placing himself under the close scrutiny of Maldonado, who was almost immediately all overthe rear of the Frenchman while, behind them, an equally fraught battle was being waged for sixthplace between D’Ambrosio, Sébastien Buemi and Senna, the latter arguably needing the pointmore than the men in front of him, who were clearly unwilling to hand him any presents.
And when the chequered flag dropped it was Valsecchi and fresh air, with Rodriguez, Grosjeanand Maldonado crossing the line nose to tail nine seconds back and just one second ahead ofchampion Giorgio Pantano, who drove a mature race to finish his championship on 76 points,while D’Ambrosio held on for sixth place. Senna meanwhile was just relieved to have finallycaptured second place in the championship on 64 points, one ahead of di Grassi and two aheadof Grosjean, while Campos won their inaugural title over iSport by 103 points to 95, with PiquetSports just 3 points further back in third place.
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